The Primacy of “Mother Language”

By Mark W.F. Condon, Unite for Literacy vice president

The world celebrates International Mother Tongue Day every year on February 21, as designated by the United Nations, to recognize the primacy of the home language in everyone’s culture. That language in turn is the most comprehensive path to the full understanding of a people and their values. The commitment of International Mother Tongue Day is that each of us has the right to express ourselves freely and fully in our mother tongues. That makes this day of recognition particularly important for schools that generously welcome children from a range of home language environments.

Background: Approximately one in 10 K-12 children across the U.S. speaks a language other than English at home. In states with higher concentrations of Second Language Learners (on their way to becoming bilinguals) that figure is closer to one in four. A growing proportion of all Kindergarteners across the U.S. are bilingual and the trend for that is increasing.

For that reason alone, speaking at least two languages can now be seen as a fabulous or even necessary asset for everybody, not just children. Increasingly, families, even those speaking English in the home, are beginning to recognize the powerful benefits of their children becoming fluently bilingual.

Enlightened educators have come to appreciate that any full education will include recognizing and supporting each child’s native tongue. This maximizes children’s chances for success both in and well beyond formal schooling.

Now, it has become axiomatic that children can learn to read most easily using storybooks and factual material with racially and culturally diverse names and faces.  Books composed (or translated into culturally appropriate versions) by authors who are fluent in children’s mother tongues and who share their cultural experiences and sensibilities provide additional support for native speakers.

There are two innovations that might make this fulsome language education a possibility for all children:

1.        Publishers cannot afford to print beginners’ books for children from homes of the 350+ languages now spoken in the U.S. This suggests a natural move for early readers to access online, narrated picture books, within which languages can be chosen on demand by the readers’ families. Moving between the mother tongue and English versions of a book can serve all of those who are new to English (or those who are novices in the second language).

2.        Such digital books can be enjoyed by babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, with the entire family involved. These early literacy experiences help children in learning essential concepts of books, print, reading, and writing that provide a foundation for their learning to read and write when these youngest bilinguals arrive at school.

Multi-language, culturally rich resources are currently within reach, and many organizations, including Unite for Literacy, are working on expanding them for families around the world. One day, every day will be International Mother Language Day for linguistically diverse children.